Heirstitch
by minkspit
Summary: The Marlfoxes were dysfunctional since day one, but no one said they were a disorganized kind of dysfunctional. Foxes know how to plan, after all. Especially Marlfoxes. Series of shorts; pre-book and mid-book.
1. Snapping Stitches (Lantur-Mokkan)

Lantur was not fond of sewing, and nor was she very used to it: Castle Marl had servants for that kind of tedious work, and her own maid Wilce usually handled any work she didn't wish to dirty her paws with. Marlfoxes were not fond of labor beneath them.

But Marlfoxes _were_ fond of the thrill of victory, and as Lantur and any decent Marlfox knew, if one wanted to keep a secret and get a job done well, one had to do it themselves.

_So close,_ Lantur thought, tying off the final thread and clipping it. She held up the stitched white sheet in front of her with aching paws, excitement bristling her fur. It had taken two filched spools of thread and four whole nights of sewing and tolerating pricks of the needle while her siblings were running about, but now her creation was almost complete.

Now if Wilce could be ordered into helping with the main rope and the charade, Lantur thought, her heart pounding, everything would be complete, and as for her mother Queen _Silth—_

"Not up to anything, are you?"

Lantur almost flew out of her chair, but she had the grace to swiftly fold up the specter's robes in her paws and pull them into her lap, hidden from sight of the door by her back. She remained in place as she heard Mokkan saunter through the door, his axe slung over his shoulder. Lantur took the opportunity to drop her project to the floor and shove it beneath her chair with her feet.

"Not really," she said, her voice filled with lofty boredom and face stoic. She ignored the glint of amusement in Mokkan's eyes as he strolled through her quarters, knowing it meant he had seen her stiffen up and her fur bristle. "Aren't you in the wrong quarters, brother?" she said, pushing forth when Mokkan didn't leave the room and contained to browse around her belongings, observing each locked and sealed chest. "I believe your and Ascrod's rooms are in the hall much closer to the _ground_, unless you've forgotten your way."

"I wasn't intending to go to my quarters, Lantur," Mokkan said, giving her a smile with a hint of malice in the flashed teeth as he rolled over the axe in his paws. "I just wanted to visit my sweet, _sweet_ youngest sister before we headed off to Mossflower on another one of mother's asinine treasure hunts and left you all alone with her."

The sharpened edge of steel made Lantur suddenly want her axe. She turned in her chair to look at Mokkan, trying to hide the nervousness bolting through her veins.

"Shove off, Mokkan," she said, her patience ending. Her voice had become higher with stress as Mokkan came closer instead of leaving, and it came out a high-pitched shrill of anger. "This isn't your room; get out!"

"You're an unsympathetic little furball to someone who's trying to look after you," Mokkan said, snorting as he passed by her sewing desk. He tapped the edge of her table with his poleaxe staff and made it quiver for good measure. "Fine, I'll leave. You can continue practicing to be a shrieking harpy by yourself."

Lantur's face flushed beneath her fur, and she growled. "And you can go trek up to Mossflower to practice being mother's pathetic, crownless little errand pup!"

Mokkan didn't bother to look back at her, clapping his paw open and shut like a jabbering puppet's mouth, and he strolled back to the door. Just as he was almost there and Lantur had picked up her lumpy pincushion borrowed from Wilce, he paused.

In one movement, Mokkan whirled around and brought his poleaxe down on Lantur's sewing desk. The aged, delicate wood shattered with the force of a rotten tree snapping, and splinters flew everywhere, sticking in Lantur's fur and scattering across the floor.

"OUT!" Lantur howled, leaping to her feet away from the desk and quivering with rage as Mokkan brought down the axe again, destroying two sets of drawers. Cloth and trinkets poured from the material wound. "STOP! I'M GOING TO CALL ZIRAL IF YOU DON'T LEAVE; OUT, MOKKAN, GET OUT!"

"I'm just doing an inspection here. I have to be sure my little sister isn't hiding anything," Mokkan said, but his satisfied smirk at Lantur's outrage was instantly wiped off his face when a poker almost nailed him in the eye.

Lantur grabbed a nearby handful of decorative stones and candlesticks and began heaving them at her brother. One of the silver candlestick holders shattered as she barely missed Mokkan's ducking head and it hit the wall behind him.

"I SAID _OUT OF MY ROOM!_" Lantur screamed, and her brother made a hastily undignified retreat with his tail between his legs as he was pursued out by a shower of glitzy debris.

Mokkan slammed the door shut behind him just in time for a glass ball to thud into it with a _whump_ and bounce off, and when he was gone, Lantur stopped her heaving and put down her arsenal. She flopped down at her chair, straightening her dress sleeves and grumbling. Half of her desk was entirely destroyed, and now her room was in shambles. So much for Mokkan departing peacefully.

Lantur felt the barest sting of content when she pulled out the specter puppet she had been working on, and the sting turned into a full blown shudder of relief when she considered what Mokkan would have done if he had found it. She looked at her ruined desk, her possessions spilling out onto the floor. But he was on to her. He had noticed her occupation during the evening and likely hadn't bought the lies about her entertaining herself with scrolls or her baubles. He had been looking for something. And unlike Predak, Ziral, Gelltor, Vannan or Ascrod, Mokkan knew how to finish what he started.

Lantur took a deep breath to compose herself. She lifted the robe up to her face, staring at the gaping eye sockets she had created.

It didn't matter, she thought, pushing her thumb along the hole. First, she would take care of the Queen. And then, she would take care of the firstborn, and keep moving her way down from there.

It took some work in a line of succession to make sure the youngest got their due.

* * *

_Short fic requests open, one request per reader. Prompt taken from tumblr:_

_Whump fic; send me two of the Marlfox brood and one of the following sentences, and I'll write you a whump or hurt comfort ficlet about them:_

_"Ah, that hurt!"/ __"Are you sure you're alright?" / __"Can you walk?" / __"Do that and you'll only worsen things." / __"Does that hurt?" / __"How do you expect to _ with a sprained _?" / __"I'll carry you, hold still or it'll hurt more." / __"I can't bend my arm." / __"I can't walk." / __"I think I hurt my ankle." / __"Stop!" / __"Stop crying and listen to me." / __"That's not supposed to bend like that." / __"You hurt your leg?" / __"You look like you're in pain."_


	2. Mediocrity Takes Two (Predak-Gelltor)

Gelltor stopped grimacing and whining long enough to look at his floppy wrist in astonishment.

"That's not supposed to bend like that."

"You _think_?" Predak growled, grabbing his paw and lower arm as she clumsily prepared to pop his wrist back into place.

Castle Marl had been quiet and gloomy in the morning fog bank that rolled in over the lake, entwining the castle in its own nest of clouds. Predak had been strolling around the lakeside to explore the nooks and crannies of the castle base, hoping to avoid her siblings and the growing pains they were all facing. Instead, she ran into a sulking Gelltor sitting on one shore while he nursed a dislocated wrist.

Predak raised Gelltor's arm and shoved his wrist up with no warning, and Gelltor yowled as his wrist slid back into place with a pop that echoed over the still water. He yanked his paw back and shoved his sister away, snarling.

"You should've given me a warning you were goin' to do that!"

"Mayhaps you should be less stupid next time and not get hurt!" Predak shot back. "We all heard mother's commotion; why were you dumb enough to bring her that great big ugly lump of a rock?"

"It had fossils in it!" Gelltor snapped, drawing his paw back to nurse it. "Thought it would be a good idea to get her something before Mokkan beat the rest of us to butterin' her up and you know it."

"Aye, and with the state she's in now, no one is goin' to be buttering her up anytime soon," Predak said.

She grimaced as she remembered the ranting she and Ziral had heard from her mother's chambers and the crack that echoed after it, along with someone fleeing from the hall, and every one of the siblings had avoided the queen that morning. Silth was getting touchier. Their mother was becoming harder to please in any aspect and starting to avoid the outskirts of the castle. Her temper was strong and fierce, leading her to lash out at inopportune moments for everybeast— much like Gelltor.

Predak's eyes drifted back to her brother. His anger was simmering down, and now he just looked sullen and disgruntled from his forced retreat.

"Did she throw it at you?" Predak said.

"She threw it at the wall next to me," Gelltor said. "But I spent two hours mucking around with a load of filthy rats to find that rock after Ascrod landed me in trouble. I wasn't about to just let her break it."

"You tried to catch it," Predak said flatly. She had a solid five seconds to marvel at her brother's stupidity. "Mother was tryin' to take your head off, and the first thing you do is try to catch the blasted rock instead of turning and running out the door like anyone with half a brain would."

"Well, what would've you done?" Gelltor snapped, throwing his arms out and wincing at the flap of his wrist. "T'would be fun to see you deal with mother when she's like that; it isn't like I have anything _else_ to give her!"

"I would've ran!" Predak said, her voice cutting through the fog, "Like I just told you!"

"And you're runnin' from Vannan right now, which is why you're out here, right?" Gelltor said, tone snide. "I don't think you've given the queen a good gift in a while or charmed her any."

Predak shoved him. She turned away from Gelltor and crossed her arms as he huffed and began to swear heatedly about her beneath his breath. Predak swallowed a snort.

_Males._ Her brothers were getting insufferable the older they got, besides being a lot lankier. If father had been a fourth of this stupid towards mother all the time, Predak could see why Silth had chosen to sink an axe into the back of his neck and shove him off the top of the tower.

Predak turned to watch the tendrils of fog creep above the surface of the water. It floated and swirled over Castle Marl's black moat with a weightless easiness, but Predak couldn't help the sinking feeling inside of her.

Gelltor was right. As much as she hated to admit it, when she thought about it, both she and he hadn't been appeasing mother much lately with gifts or words, especially when she got into her foul tempers and fits over shiny things. That kind of sweet-talking was left for Mokkan or Lantur, even if the latter made Silth's temper worse sometimes. Ziral and Vannan were good at digging up things the queen liked and presenting them to her at the right moment. And Ascrod—well, at least Ascrod knew how to grovel right.

Gelltor and Predak were the middle children. They were the oldest in the second litter composed of them, Ascrod, and Lantur. The preceding litter had yielded Mokkan, Ziral, and Vannan.

Neither Predak nor Gelltor were very good looking—they were Marlfoxes, which put them miles above any other creatures, but among their family, they were lackluster. Gelltor's chin was too thick and he was too short, and Predak's hooded eyes gave her a dull expression and her shoulders weren't straight. Lantur and Ascord were the cutest, and Vannan was decent-looking, but Mokkan and Ziral were the best looking out of the brood, and being the oldest, they had also had time to polish their charm to deal with Silth.

Charm was another area where Gelltor and Predak were stuck. Their tongues stumbled over any slick lies or flatteries they tried to pay, and they couldn't weave silvery circles around anyone like Ascrod and little Lantur could, or voice the sweet, anger-laced lies that Mokkan and Ziral did so well with. And Vannan; at least Vannan could hold her tongue when she was outdone. Gelltor suffered from his temper daily, Predak thought, observing her grumpy brother, and unlike Ziral, he didn't have the intelligence to make up for it or turn it to work for him.

_Intelligence._ Predak hated that word sometimes. She had to admit that she and Gelltor weren't quite as sharp as the rest of their siblings. Gelltor wasn't as bright and missed out on things, and Predak stumbled and picked up late on the intricacies of the backstabbing plans the others made. That was part of the reason she had been forced to flee from Vannan earlier: she hadn't known she was being set up for getting locked in the kitchen scullery until Vannan almost slammed the door on her ribs when she escaped.

Predak didn't want to admit it, but she had a secret fear that the needle she had was short, filed-down and blunt, and everybeast else's needles were long, sharp and slender, capable of pricking a paw and making somebeast bleed before they even realized it. _Everybeast else but Gelltor, _Predak thought.

She shifted, adjusting her seat on the hard rock. The mist was starting to stick along the edges of her fur in small droplets, but it gave her no chill or discomfort. Predak was used to the gloomy weather of the island: she was a Marlfox. Next to her, Gelltor shifted, feeling the same thing. Predak finally turned her head to look at him. He was still rubbing his wrist.

"Hey," she said, extending her paw, "pass it over."

Gelltor gave her a suspicious look, but he did as she asked and put his paw in hers. Predak pulled out a ribbon she had filched from Lantur's room and began to tie up his wrist, supporting it.

"Now Lantur's goin' to be mad at me too," Gelltor said, but he sounded more disdainful than concerned.

"I don't give a halfbit about what Lantur thinks," Predak said. They might have to face Lantur's squeaky and vengeful wrath later, but right now, that wasn't a concern.

"Neither do I," Gelltor said. "She's a OWW!" he yipped, his fingers tightening around Predak's when she pulled the ribbon snug. He snapped at her. "Watch how hard you're pullin' that!"

"I am, idiot," Predak said, nipping back and continuing to tie the ribbon. "If you want to complain, you can do it yourself."

She finished the knot off, and she and Gelltor dropped their paws, the last joints of their fingers still interlocked. They watched some of the distant, black figures of the water rats working in the distance, moving about to tend to the slaves on the edges of the island away from the castle and to haul up nets of fish to feed themselves. The upper floors of Castle Marl itself were still dormant.

With no doubt, Predak thought, everyone was lounging around their quarters, even if they were going to get stir-crazy soon and have to come out. Fog was a Marlfox's friend. Any element of disguise was. And the weather was too inviting for a game of hide-and-seek to stay inside.

An idea formed in Predak's mind as she saw the rats running about the water's edge, being careful not to wade in too far, and remembered one of the small ponds that had formed at the edge of the castle's rear walls.

"You want to help me push Vannan into the lake?"

Gelltor looked at her with a hint of apprehension.

"With the pikes? While everyone is still around?"

"No, daft, I meant the shallow pool in the cove around back," Predak said. "T'will be too shallow for them there."

Gelltor considered it for a moment.

"If Ascrod goes in after her, then deal," he said.

"Done," Predak said, curling her fingers fully between his and shaking his paw before she got up, and Gelltor followed, helping her past a patch of slick rock.

They were Predak and Gelltor Marlfox, and they were not the smartest, or the oldest or the cleverest, or the youngest or the prettiest. They could not take on the rising heirs Mokkan or Ziral or Vannan on their own, or outdo the childish charisma of Lantur or Ascrod. The only ones they could possibly handle on their own were each other.

But they took what victories they could get.

* * *

_Requests are the same as stated at the end of the first chapter._


	3. Drowning In Company (Vannan-Ascrod)

"I am goin' to _kill_ them."

Vannan coughed, hacking up half a mouthful of water, and she picked a slimy piece of seaweed from her mouth with disgust, throwing it to the ground. Nearby, Ascrod followed in her wake, trying to rub his sodden arms for warmth. He and his older sister's pelts sagged with water, dripping off their frames.

"I want to boil both of their heads when we catch them," Ascrod said, shaking as they ventured up the empty rock beach, "but you _did_ make Predak mad, and t'was the same with me and Gelltor, so it shouldn't come as a surprise."

"Enough," Vannan grumbled, flicking a water droplet from her ear. She was far from being in a good mood, but she didn't voice any more anger to her younger brother. It was hardly Ascrod's fault. She had gotten most of her yelling out of her system while they were pursuing their guilty siblings anyway.

Vannan should have known better than to follow Gelltor outside when he said he wanted her to see one of the shallow pools behind the castle. But he had kept insisting she come, and after their mother's furious outburst towards him in the morning, Vannan thought he deserved some humoring. For all of his and Ziral's turns towards bad temper, Gelltor always ended up paying for it, and it was pathetic in a way that needed nurturing when it didn't need mockery.

Vannan and Gelltor had headed out of Castle Marl with Ascrod tagging along, the latter tired of playing with Lantur and listening to Mokkan and Ziral's discussions about dulling mother's bite again, and the trio of Marlfoxes had slipped out into the mist and darted down the shore.

Now, as cold water squelched between her toes and left faint tracks behind her on the rock, Vannan believed she should have humored Gelltor with a smack instead. She had suspicions when Gelltor appeared without Predak and let Ascrod come along without a peep. Gelltor was seldom seen without the other middle sibling, and he was still sore from Ascrod's honey-tail prank that had landed him in trouble with the queen in the first place.

Vannan believed he needed to get over it; it was hardly Ascrod's fault that Gelltor had not been sharp enough to see the trickery coming. Being swift and vigilant was necessary in life, and she had told him and Predak as much multiple times when they bothered to listen. He still hadn't gotten over the prank: Gelltor was not one to simmer down easily. But the middle sibling hadn't so much as side-eyed the second-to-youngest one, and Ascrod had eventually pulled out of Vannan's shadow, where he always hid when threatened, and trotted along with a jaunty smugness.

When Predak had burst out of hiding while they were observing the shallow pool and shoved both of them into the water with Gelltor's help, Vannan decided a little too late her suspicions were justified.

Ascrod coughed, shaking himself and trying to fluff up his tail for warmth, but he remained a dappled melting mess. He shivered as he picked a fleck of weed from his shoulder fur. The mist was growing chillier, turning the sand and pebble banks that swept down from the rock dull and as pale as the Marlfoxes' eyes. While Vannan had warmed up by chasing Predak in circles and threatening to wring her neck, Gelltor had tripped an angry Ascrod into the water—again—before he and Predak split down the beach in opposite directions, disappearing into the fog with their laughter ringing over the shore long after they left it empty.

Vannan, for all her fury, was unable to catch her younger sister before Predak zinged away, and she hadn't had the chance to pursue the slower Gelltor since she had to go rescue a floundering, snarling Ascrod from being suffocated by his wet cloak. Now the only things left outside were two sulky and wet Marlfoxes.

No doubt Predak had vanished into the wormholes of secret passages at the castle base, Vannan thought. By now she and Gelltor were having a chortle as they hung out of her quarter's window and tried to spy their siblings trudging back into the castle. _I need to have a word with Ziral about teaching her those passages,_ Vannan thought, and she grimaced.

Ascrod coughed again, and Vannan turned around. He still resembled a miserable, sodden ball, even though his fur had managed to puff out again. His wet cloak slithered from the crook of his arm in a dribble of black cloth.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Vannan said, and Ascrod rubbed his head, cuffing his ear in another attempt to get out the last bit of water.

"Yeah," he said, inching closer to Vannan to try and hide in case any stray water rats were watching. Ascrod did not like being seen smaller than he already was, especially by the rats. "Just cold."

"Well, hurry, and mayhap we won't freeze," Vannan said, ushering her brother forward. The last thing she needed was for Ascrod to get sick when she needed someone to converse with besides the others.

With the moods Ziral and Mokkan had been in, she thought, a beast would believe growing bigger was the same as being completely broken and stretched out in a fishing net for the gulls. Vannan ached now and then, but she hardly stooped to the snide snaps or slights Mokkan or Ziral did when in pain... mostly. Attempting to shut Predak in the cellar more than once didn't count. But as for Predak and Gelltor, she did not want to speak to them now, and since Lantur was _teething_—no, she wasn't going to poke that pike's nest. Speaking to mother was out of question.

If Ascrod got ill and couldn't talk to Vannan, Gelltor and Predak were going to answer for it until he recovered, or be hung up by their tails.

"Mokkan and Ziral will make room around the fire," Vannan said, wiping her paws. "They've been there long enough."

"I hope so," Ascrod said. "Lantur is goin' to have a fit; this cloak is hers," he muttered, looking down at the sodden cloak in his grasp.

"Fires are good for dryin' out more than foxes," Vannan said, and she gave Ascrod a comforting pat on the back. "What she won't know won't hurt her."

Which was a complete lie. But really, it was only a cloak, and if it shielded Ascrod or his older sister from any future scolding, it was a deserved lie.

Vannan and Ascrod headed back into the castle.

* * *

_Requests are the same as stated at the end of the first chapter._


	4. Weighty Expectations (Mokkan-Ascrod)

Mossflower was a far cry from Castle Marl. The Marlfox stronghold was an isolated construct of mist and slippery grey rock that was isolated from the world by a lake filled with writhing pike, threatening anything that didn't pass into the realm sneakily enough. Mossflower was an interlocked, vibrant green mess of trees and branches that chattered constantly and spread ripples of news everywhere across its tangled webs of foliage and inhabitants.

The forest was as messy as its social life. It was all too easy to trip.

"Hellgates!" Ascrod yipped, stumbling over a tree root, and he bit back another round of swears as he stumbled to his feet and adjusted his cloak, dusting leaves and dirt off himself with disgust.

"Keep it down, Ascrod," Mokkan said. He glided behind a tree, stepping over the same kind of protruding roots that had entangled his brother. Scouting out Mossflower was always a pain. It was highly unlikely that any woodlander or common vermin would find their tracks, but only fools invited carelessness.

Ascrod muttered something under his breath, but Mokkan didn't catch it.

After five minutes of trudging along and catching the quiet huffs of pain and curses that Ascrod muttered beneath his breath, however, Mokkan decided that something needed to be done. He turned around, ignoring Ascrod's deft swallowing of pain and moving to scoop him up.

"Alright, this is getting nowhere," Mokkan said. "You've hurt your leg and you're slower than Hellgates and louder than a blundering shrew. Onto my back."

"I am capable of walkin' myself," Ascrod grumbled, but Mokkan hefted him onto his back like a kit being taken for a ride.

"Hey!"

"I'll carry you, hold still or it'll hurt more," Mokkan warned, and he wasn't just speaking of Ascrod's twisted ankle jarring.

Ascrod grimaced, but he wrapped his arms around Mokkan's neck and allowed his brother to carry him. Mokkan changed his route, slipping beneath the arch of a tree branch. Ascrod huffed in pain as he ducked. He said nothing as Mokkan changed his route to cut the scouting mission short and take him back to camp.

Ascrod was entirely too trusting, Mokkan thought. He wouldn't have been enthusiastic about relying on any of his other siblings to carry him back to camp in case of an injury, and they wouldn't have enjoyed it either if the situation was reversed. It was likely that they would bring Mokkan back, but there was yet the possibility that they _wouldn't._

Even if they did, Mokkan thought, it would have been with no pleasantries. Dear Ziral would have helped him limp back to camp with an abundance of curses before she spent the rest of time making snide reference to his injury, and Gelltor—in all likelihood, Gelltor would throw his older brother back into the camp like a sack of potatoes after hauling him back the same way. Even Predak and Vannan's sympathy would have been limited, though Mokkan would have preferred them over the others.

It went unsaid that if he and Lantur vanished into the woods together after Lantur had finished weaving her little scheme, only one of them was coming back. It wouldn't have been Lantur.

That was a pity, honestly. Mokkan liked Lantur. She was bright and ambitious, even for a Marlfox, and she was going places. If those places didn't involve slaying him and mother and taking the throne, Mokkan thought, almost apologetically, then he wouldn't have to kill her.

Ascrod's ears perked up as they heard a chord of birdsong ripple through the trees around them, and he hunkered down on Mokkan's back, using his green cloak to shield himself. Mokkan was drawn back to his second-youngest sibling.

"We should be back at camp before noon at this rate," Ascrod muttered. "T'will be harder for Gelltor or Ziral to snipe about anything."

"They'll snipe about it regardless," Mokkan said. Ascrod was beyond optimistic if he thought that pair would stay quiet.

Ascrod was optimistic, period. Mokkan was sure that he and Vannan were the mediators holding the brood together at times in their less ambitious moments. He thought that all seven of them would inherit the castle after mother's death and split it evenly, fairly, and rule alongside each other.

The poor, naive Ascrod actually believed that his siblings wouldn't eat each other, Mokkan thought, and he felt pity tempered by a hint of jealousy. Ascrod just didn't understand yet. The same greed and cleverness which drove them to work together would lead them to destroy each other once the obstacle of Silth was removed and they were only left to crash against themselves. It was the same thing that had led Silth to murder Father. And they, as her bloodline and identical portraits of her—Mokkan resisted stroking the dappled patterns along his face and laughing bitterly; oh, he knew he looked like Silth; he could peer into the mirror of his other siblings' faces if he needed reminding—would carry out the same fate.

The best Mokkan could engineer was that_ he_ wasn't one of the first to fall.

Ascrod shifted on his back, and he turned his muzzle to watch a flit of movement in the distance. Mokkan paused in one of his strides, awaiting a tap on the shoulder if the movement was a threat that he needed to be alerted to, but Ascrod scowled and went back to surveying the forest, and Mokkan went back to walking.

But…

The jealousy was still there whenever Mokkan considered Ascrod's trust of his siblings and his firm belief they would go out supporting each other. Ignorance was bliss, and Mokkan sneered at it more oft than not, but he felt a pang whenever he saw Ascrod chattering and snarking with the others without having to watch his tongue and guard himself.

His true belief in his siblings drew out some sort of belief from them, and all of their lies and trickery and bickering held no more harm than any other harmless prank. Mokkan could almost pretend they were a brood he could trust and wouldn't have to watch his back around, especially in the future. Almost.

But he wouldn't be the oldest and most clever Marlfox sibling if he forgot threats.

"You're takin' your time, Mokkan," Ascrod said, and Mokkan glanced over his shoulder and took a detour to slip down a little winding path.

"I don't want any shrews or otters on our trail, Ascrod," Mokkan said. "Use your brain." He reached up, careful not to jar Ascrod's leg, and give his sibling a light rap on the head.

Ascrod resisted the urge to give him a light finger nip in return, but he settled for looking sulky and going back to sentry.

"Aye, fair enough," he said, "but mayhap you should deal with Ziral when we're explainin' we why're late returning; see how your explanation holds up under that spitfire."

"Ziral," Mokkan said, "won't be gushing spitfire for long when she hears an explantation."

Ascrod grinned.

"No, she's just goin' to be doing it because she's mad at you. Good luck talking her down."

Leaves rustled faintly as the footsteps of the invisible Marlfoxes tiptoed through them and the dappled pools of sunlight.

"You didn't mention Gelltor."

"Come on, now, Mokkan," Ascrod said, unconcerned, "we all know you can put down whatever Gelltor says in three seconds."

Mokkan chuckled.

Perhaps they would all devour each other one day. But it wasn't necessarily Mokkan who had to do all the devouring; it would be a mass effort. Meaning Mokkan wouldn't have to be the one to take Ascrod out. There wasn't any room for two kings, no… but perhaps there might be room for a king and an advisor, Mokkan thought, hefting Ascrod up as they headed back to camp.

Clever beasts kept friends close and enemies closer, but when someone was both of those as well as being a younger brother, one would be a fool not to hug them.

* * *

_Requests are the same as specified at the end of the first chapter._


	5. Us Ravens Two (Vannan-Ziral)

There was one thing to never say to Ziral Marlfox unless one wanted their head bitten off, verbally or physically.

"You seem like you're in pain."

Ziral turned around with a hateful, angry face, shifting the poleaxe over her shoulder. Her exhaustion made her eyes coals smoldering in her face, and she peeled back her lips, showing her teeth.

"_What._"

"I said," her sister repeated, closing the door behind them as she looked Ziral in the eye, "you seem like you're in pain."

Unless one happened to be Vannan Marlfox.

"Out, Vannan," Ziral growled, turning her back to her again, "unless you want your head put on a dish and fed to the pikes."

Vannan ignored her, walking over to her sister and neatly pulling up a chair a few feet away. Her green cloak pooled onto the seat behind her.

"T'would be a waste of a good plate and upset mother," she said, "so I think not."

Ziral snorted, and tension laced up her back. Her paws squeezed her poleaxe.

"Hang mother out for the crows," she spat. "'Upset' her… feh."

Vannan said nothing. She set the two goblets of wine she had taken from the cellar onto the desk nearby, and she set the cheesecloth bundle she had carried in her paws onto her lap, splaying her fingers over the neat string tying it shut. Both she and Ziral sat in silence, listening to the muffled noises and mournful echoes that were faintly detectable through the castle walls. One was a fraction of a sob. Vannan glanced up at Ziral as they both heard it.

"She's been cryin' all day in her quarters," Vannan said. "I thought she was about to start in the throne room."

"What, after she triumphantly marched in the rats and told them to bow to their new queen and only ruler, and to go fishin' for father's body for proof?" Ziral snorted. "I'm sure she was close to cryin'. Out of joy, maybe. Or laughter."

"She's not cryin' out of either of those now," Vannan said.

There was a pause. Ziral set down her poleaxe. Vannan lifted the wrapped bag in her paws.

"Hungry?"

"I have no sympathy for her crying," Ziral said. "She's a Marlfox; she cries as much as a snake. And there's someone who's been heavin' more than she has all day."

Ziral's eyes flicked towards the door. Vannan's ears drooped in sympathy when she saw all of Ziral's spiky, mussed fur along her shoulders and chest that came from tears. Thankfully, the quarters besides their mother's were finally quiet now.

"Lantur's still not takin' it well, then?"

"What do you think?" Ziral shot back. She turned in her chair, throwing an arm over the back and slumping in it, owning all of the space. "T'would be no surprise to me if she dries her eyes out and lets them turn to dust. She stayed up all night."

"I heard," Vannan said softly. Lantur's screams of anger and violent tantrum hadn't subsided for the first hour after she had heard Mother's announcement from the throne room, making Ascrod flee their shared quarters and come and bunk with Vannan. But after the rage had died, it had devolved into a mass of gross sobbing and bawling, and begs to see Father again, and Ziral had left her and Vannan's room to settle their youngest sibling.

Vannan hadn't seen Ziral all night. She had kept a lookout for her in the morning when they went to retrieve breakfast, though that had consisted of all the siblings sneaking down to the kitchen when they thought none of the others could see them and filching food. Vannan and Ascrod had stolen a few loaves of bread and passed by Gelltor and Predak high-jacking a tray of scones, and Vannan had caught a glimpse of Mokkan's silvery tail darting around a corner, but no Ziral or Lantur.

Now that she had brought up some food, she could see why. Ziral was exhausted.

"I wish she would just _shut up_," Ziral muttered, narrowing her eyes as they heard another noise, and Vannan knew she wasn't referring to Lantur.

"Ziral, I don't think she's faking," Vannan said, and Ziral gave her a look. "Mother doesn't have a fondness for showin' weakness, and t'would be odd for her to have no problems showin' it now. At the moment, she must believe no one can hear her... she is going to miss Father, you know."

"You're sayin' Queen Silth doesn't know that her own castle echoes?" Ziral said. "That's a lie if I've ever heard one. She knows we're listening. Just like how she knew the rats were listening in the throne room. I bet she's crying just because she knows we can hear her… she has to tell different lies to her children and servants, after all." Ziral's lip curled. "Show pride to the rats and show weeping to the pups; to be a Marlfox is to play everybeast the way you want to make them see what you like."

Vannan reached out the bag of food in her lap to Ziral. Ziral mutely took it. She wound the ribbon around her fingers like a noose. They listened to silence. Silth had stifled her crying.

"She hasn't tried talkin' to Lantur," Vannan said.

"She won't," Ziral said. "For her own sake."

Both of them knew Lantur would start her screaming and throwing of heavy objects if Silth so much as spoke one word outside her door, and the wrath would double tenfold if she if made the mistake of opening it. For Mother to step inside was to ask for a lost eye or a death wish, and she knew that all too well. It was why she had not even attempted conversation with Lantur.

She had, however, attempted it with others. Mother had entered their quarters to talk to them earlier. Her face had been dirtied with tear tracts, but she pretended they were not there, and spoke to Ascrod and Vannan with her head held up and ignored the slight crack in her voice at turns. The conversation could be summed up as "support your temperamental siblings" and "I did what I had to."

"Did she talk to you?" Vannan said, and Ziral rolled her eyes.

"Of course she did," she said, "and she went after Predak and Gelltor and fed them the same thing about how she did what she had and how Father was growing greedy in the same tone. Vupuz knows what she did with Mokkan," Ziral said, bitterness lacing her voice, and both of them couldn't help but glance towards the door.

"Have you seen…?"

"No."

Lantur wasn't the only one who had been missing all day, Vannan thought. Mokkan hadn't appeared once after the flash of his tail in the morning fray. He was in his room, she knew that, because she had been spying on the hall and seen Mother stop outside it to speak to him. Silth had appeared at their doors with an element of crooked pride, as someone who was trying to look proper and composed when they were leaning and couldn't help it, but when Vannan saw her reach Mokkan's room, she completely ironed out her back and replaced the vulnerability in her face with a cold, triumphant regality. She had rapped on the door, and after a moment's pause, it had opened and allowed her access. Silth had strode in.

She went to everyone else as a mother, but to Mokkan, she went as a queen, with none of the compromise or care in her that she had conserved for the others. Vannan and Ziral hadn't been able to eavesdrop on the conversation; Mokkan's room was too far away. They could still guess some of the things Silth had said to him. "Stay a clever oldest heir, Mokkan, for your queen. Keep your siblings in line. And be a good boy and don't usurp me."

Father's death had thrown all of them into different equilibriums to cope. Mokkan was silent and- literally- withdrawn, Predak and Gelltor were curled up together and trying to sleep it off, Ascrod was lying in Vannan's room and reading a story over and over, Ziral was exhausted and staying with a sympathetic Vannan after the struggle to comfort Lantur- and Lantur; she was perpetually falling to pieces.

The most extreme reaction instant reaction after hers had been Gelltor's, Vannan thought, reaching for one of the wine goblets she had set on the desk. At the news, Predak had stopped him from trying to punch holes in the wall. But Gelltor was angry at the principle of it, not the actuality. Neither he nor Predak had been close to Father, who had paid them the bare amount of attention he believed he owed them for being his blood. It was Lantur who had been the darling, forever being preened and coached into possessing a blanket of skills that would guard her from the loneliness of being the only one without a twin, without a partner… and Mokkan had been afforded the same thing by Silth.

Now all the Marls were united by misery.

Ziral unwrapped the cheesecloth sack of food in her lap and began eating, sticking the tidbits Vannan had scrounged up into her mouth. Vannan was drawn back to the now present air of frazzled exhaustion around her. Gelltor may have lashed out, but he was not the only one with the anger boiling beneath the surface. Ziral had slashed apart several curtains in the main hall with her poleaxe before a quarrel with Mokkan drew her away from her rage, but after that, she had kept her ire bitten down on her tongue, and Vannan had seen it festering in her since.

Ziral did not forget. Ziral did not simmer down. But unlike Gelltor, she did not boil over constantly and trip on her eagerness- she could wait. And that was a dangerous thing from the oldest sister indeed.

"Ascrod or I will check on Lantur later," Vannan said. "T'will be easy for us to cover it." Ziral flicked her ears back in gratitude as she scarfed a piece of cheese.

When Ziral had finished with wolfing down the food with no regard for what it was, she took hold of the second goblet Vannan had brought up. The dark liquid shifted in the cup as Ziral raised it.

"Have a whole bottle of this, by any chance?" Ziral asked, looking at Vannan, and Vannan shook her head.

"I'm a good thief; not a feast bringer. You would have to head downstairs for the rest."

"To Hellgates with that," Ziral said. "I'd likely pin one of the servant rats up against the wall with my poleaxe for bein' too slow and clumsy; I'm in no mood to be patient with anyone right now."

She grinned at Vannan, a smile filled with more fang than joy, and raised up her goblet.

"To the new queen. May she live long and rot fast."

Vannan raised her chalice in return.

"To the old king," she said. "May our brother not be next."

Ziral laughed.

The sisters drained their goblets.


End file.
